Water profile for a Blonde

Hi,
Does anybody have a recommendation for a water profile for a blonde ale?
Thanks in advance.

It's a balanced style, so ........ perhaps

Ca......100 ppm
Mg........15 ppm
for hot break and yeast performance

Chloride:Sulfate ratio of 1:1 for balanced bittering?  Each approx. 80 or 90 ppm? 

If you want it hop-leaning, increase sulfate.

Hitting the correct RA depends on your source water.  http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter15-3.html

Thanks,

I appreciate you taking the time to look at this.

I use salt lake city water / charcoal filtered

If I understand correctly, I should use 3.7g Gypsum and 4.6g Calcium Chloride.

I usually use a tsp of Lactic Acid to bring down the PH.

Does that sound like a good idea?

Thanks again,

If you're going to adjust water often, I'd recommend getting some Calcium Carbonate too.  That provides Ca without also boosting SO4 as gypsum does. 

If you only have gypsum and Ca Chloride, then you end up using more b/c the sulfates go up and it takes more Chloride to cancel out the SO4.  I personally try to reach the PPM targets with the least amount of minerals possible. 

I don't use lactic acid but I did start using phosphoric acid to reduce the pH, and was amazed that it took just one drop to reduce pH by 2 points in about 3.5 gallons.  Pretty potent stuff. 

Calcium carbonate will RAISE your mash pH...the CO3- ion has more influence on the mash pH than the Calcium does...the net result is to increase your pH.  Besides, it makes things taste chalky.

I generally use equal amounts of CaCl and CaSO4, and some MgSO4 when needed to boost Mg for yeast health in 70+ beers....or to boost SO4 without adding Calcium for Hoppy beers. 

I use 88% Lactic to fine-tune pH of the mash and sparge.  Generally a ml or 2 is enough for each.  You don't want to use more than 3 ml in a 5-6 gallon batch, unless you want the flavor.  3 ml / 5 gallons is the start of the taste threshold.  I'm not that sensitive to it, so I can't taste it until about 4.5 ml.

When I make a beer below 10 SRM, I use 50% carbon filtered tap water, 50% Distilled.  Then I add 5 grams CaSO4, 10 grams CaCl, and 5 grams MgSO4, and 1.5 ml Lactic....for 4 gallons of Mash water.

I acidify my sparge water to a pH of 5.6 or so. 

My resulting profile is:

Calcium Magnesium Sodium Chloride Sulfate Chloride / Sulfate
(Ca ppm) (Mg ppm) (Na ppm) (Cl ppm) (SO4 ppm) Ratio

123             14             12       141       154       0.91

MaltLicker said:

If you're going to adjust water often, I'd recommend getting some Calcium Carbonate too.  That provides Ca without also boosting SO4 as gypsum does. 

If you only have gypsum and Ca Chloride, then you end up using more b/c the sulfates go up and it takes more Chloride to cancel out the SO4.  I personally try to reach the PPM targets with the least amount of minerals possible. 

I don't use lactic acid but I did start using phosphoric acid to reduce the pH, and was amazed that it took just one drop to reduce pH by 2 points in about 3.5 gallons.  Pretty potent stuff.

Click to expand...

I believe phosphoric acid reduces ca concentrations.  Palmer covers this in his brew strong podcast how to adjust water.

Thanks guys,
I appreciate it.